


Fork and Knife

by Zafaria



Category: Wizard101
Genre: Fools, Gen, I call it "The Saddening", lol as if i'd ever let my characters live that carefree love-filled life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 17:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13370133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zafaria/pseuds/Zafaria
Summary: To love and be loved, 'tis a beautiful day when mutual romance weaves its way through not one, but two sets of steel armor and enraptures the hearts of both.Yeah, that doesn't happen here.





	Fork and Knife

**Fork and Knife**

      Another day lulls by in Unicorn Way. The Arena is crowded with untamable students and graduates with singular purpose. To duel is the order of the day, and every other day.

     The marble arena has polished bricks sparkling with prestige. The wooden pews encircling the arena are empty. All the fighters are congregated around the roped-off duel circle, crowding in as close to the battle as they possibly can. The heat from spells being cast evaporates right into their faces. Metal is on the tongue and the ears fill with sizzling when one of the champions fizzles. Shouting is a constant.

     In the mix, standing before the ramp connecting the floor and the upper entrances, Annick watches with her arms crossed against her chest. She is calculating, analyzing the duel. She is compiling information on anyone who could hypothetically face her in the circle at some point in the future.

     The others stand a few feet in from of her, the metal spaulders of their shoulders striking each other in the tight ring.

     There is one day each week she does not have classes that she sets aside for dueling. She also makes time to battle, usually shirking class with Falmea in favor of practicing her craft in a more  _tangible_  form. She is always chided when she returns to class the next day. Her arrival in the Arena is nothing new, but her walking down the endless isle of the center of the classroom is always unexpected.

     There is a large group of Arena regulars who operate on much the same principle. It seems there is no other way to keep a name around the Arena if one isn’t there to declare it themselves.

     Annick is one of a few battlers who not only faces off frequently, but also does so strategically. Her name has been signed multiple times to reflect this, both in stocky block letters and wispy cursive. In the waiting area of the Arena, where the students queue for their tournaments and duels, there is a chalkboard and a scroll. The chalkboard is flexible, updated daily with names smeared over and hasty strokes proclaiming new victors every few hours. The excitement and tension of the duel would be captured in a moment with scribbling. Students would gawk at the board, recounting the match they returned from spectating or catching up on the ones they missed. The scroll is reserved for the few students who display their ingenuity in battle. Slowly, they collect their wins, quietly rising to the surface with more esteemed rankings. 

     Annick’s name is usually drawn over others in forceful strokes on the chalkboard. Her name also occupies the eighth spot of the scroll, a signature from a young, excitable hand that she hardly recognizes as her own. It was from when she first became a warlord, joining a few greats. She was rather young back then, but the sport was still gaining audience.

     She remembers looking at the other names above her on the list. Brandon, John, Belgrim, Logan, Reed. The ink had glistened on the pointed tip of the quill, with a large drop hanging and eager to pen her own name.

     Over the next year, she continued her labors. The chalkboard recalls them all, the tough battles and near wins simply marked up in a win-to-loss ratio. No one remembers the particulars of the twelfth win or the second loss. One day, there was a duel that dragged out. She doesn’t think she ever scrapped a card in that battle. Every card that left her hand was played, and perhaps this is why she won. Eventually, the boy opposite her ran out of cards after a few failed set ups and broken hits. He clung to his last spell card, passing round after round. Before Annick pulled off her finishing hit, he played his last blade and accepted defeat, but not before unfolding her own attack in the process.

     Despite the win, the duel had left a sour taste in her mouth. She exited the Arena with her fingers clenched, angry at meticulous planning and strife wasted in a single play. A quick look at the chalkboard and it all dissipated, though. She was the first person to reach over a thousand points. All the excited faces shrouded in barbutes or under the shade of wide-brimmed hats had turned to her. 

     “You’re an Overlord!”

     She is allowed to pen her name once again on the scroll. This time it is a little cleaner, a little more confident. For curiosity's sake, she traces her finger back along the page to where her first signature sat, browning. She reads the names above it again. And then she looks at the one perched underneath it.

     Roland.

     Her and Roland battle in a contest later that season. It is her first week back, fighting with shorter hair after the rest was singed off, but she likes the weightlessness. Her scalp and neck are still too burned to wear a hat. She is left with her face, and her reactions, totally visible. She worries about the cards she will pull in her hand, about uncontrollable accuracy and chance, and what the people in the stands think of her when she pinches her lip nervously. The duel is for a school tournament, and Roland relinquishes the win after a winded, tiring battle. His attack fizzles, and he is smited the next round.

     He approaches her, reshuffling his spell deck in his hands in the journey to the other side of the ring.

     “Great match!” He says.

     “Yes! Thank you so much, that was incredible!” Annick smiles. Her hair is short and framing her face. Her bubbly, rounded cheeks are red and she is out of breath herself. She expects him to shake hands and walk away. He is not so quick to abandon her.

    “No, no. Really. That was the stuff of legends. You’re so thoughtful when you play, you can see it on your face. But you’re also so collected! You keep it unpredictable!” He gushes. She hears him start in on how her face looked and is worried at first, but relaxes as the rest of the sentence draws out into an admiring remark. 

     Annick sees the sparkle in his grey eyes, nestled comfortably in the opening split in his helm. Despite loss, they are still energetic, thrilled. She returns the compliment.

    “You know, I was really worried. I was talking to a few people before and they all said that you are unstoppable! That once you set up a hit, you intend to win,” she says back.

     The two walk together, keeping pace and exchanging their comments on each other’s strategy. Roland slides his way over the wall dividing the stadium from the battle circle. He offers Annick his hand in getting over, but she opts to vault over the wall instead. He laughs, and she throws a grin back at him. 

      Roland and Annick are always hovering near each other. They begin to slip each other notes from the classes they miss, taking alternating days off to spar. Roland lives in a small townhome in Triton Avenue, but walks Annick towards the entrance to Ravenwood when they leave the Arena in the evenings. They carry their boots in their arms and stay to the lawn where the soft grass pokes up between their toes. They go to each other’s matches and cheer from the stands, patting the other on the back after a wrapped match, elbowing into the other’s sides after a win. Down the pathway towards the lake, they scout a spot to eat lunch every day. Roland begins the process of unbuckling his armored footguards and tugs his boots off. His feel trail in the water. Annick opens her satchel and pulls out a pair of sandwiches with cheese, turkey, tomato, and pesto. She tosses one into Roland’s lap.

     They sit there, not saying much as Roland circles his toes in the water. He looks at his feet while Annick stares up the hill towards the houses, watching novices run about the streets. Annick is distracted by ordeals of others and movement, her mind fixated on the instantaneous and mundane. Roland is somewhere, deeper, thinking. He leans back with his arms at his side and palms flat on the ground. His shoulders are scrunched up from the pressure. Annick finally swivels her head back straight, a loose strand of her black hair lagging behind.

     “I really like you.” Roland’s words are gentle, but abrupt. They interrupt the silence between the two. It seems like the buzzing insects and distant footsteps of the novices stop in that moment too.

     She takes a minute to inhale, her eyes wide. The sandwich sits unattended in her lap.

     “I... yeah... I guess I feel the same way,” she says. The corners of her mouth pull up in a sheepish smile; she is unable to meet his eyes, but delighted nonetheless.

     “Oh no, not like that. Not like that,” he says hurriedly. “Just as a person, you know?”

     “Oh! It’s okay, I know what you mean...” she holds her smile, but it is mirthless now, her cheeks quickly turning hot from her mistake. Was it her mistake? She is unsure of what Roland implied with his comment, and she is left searching his face, lost. Roland smiles back at her with a tight, awful grimace. His eyes glance over her face, then fall down to the water. Pitiful.

     Annick’s eyes waver over to the side, unsteady green checking around. She turns her head away, back toward the cleared street. The muscles on her face relax, empty and void of livelihood. The two finish their lunch. Annick’s fingers curl into the soft bread of her sandwich so tightly, they leave indents that tear through the dough.

     After lunch, they go back to dueling. There is a smattering of people hollering over the railing, leaning in to the arena circle while Roland goes head-to-head with another rakish brawler. Off by the entrance to the arena, behind a pillar and banners garnished with gleeful, bright suns, Annick rips at her nails with her teeth. They are torn down past the quick, the tender skin underneath searing and bleeding. Between her teeth, she grinds the edges down until they are nothing but dust. Her cuticles are split, and she wrings her red, stinging fingers before slipping back in line with the rest of the crowd. 

     That evening, she grabs her boots and hurries off, sprinting through the Commons back to her dorm. She stays to the path, with the harsh stone smacking into the bottom of her heels. When she opens the door to her apartment, she brushes the pebbles and dirt embedded into her feet off and drops her boots at the door. Sitting in her chair, she looks over her calloused, red toes.

     Her shower that night is burning, her feet growing even redder. The hot water stings her nails, and her fingers and burnt scalp ache when she washes her hair, scratching into her head. A few tears slip out and are lost with the rest of the water. She puts on puffy blue terry robe and crawls into bed. Her nose drips.

     For hours, she lay on her back, arms tucked behind her head. Her eyes scan the wood rafters as her mind drifts.

     Images and idealizations of all the pretty girls at the school haunt her. They have long, straight hair and gorgeous long robes adorned with gold and blue jewels. Their small feet are covered by heels with gentle tread.

     They do not wear bulky pieces of steel armor, and their hair does not leave the nape of their neck exposed to peering, judgemental eyes.

     She weeps. Sad, distressed, ugly sounds and groans, and thinks that this is exactly why. After meteor strikes and comets, her singed hair is not pretty. When her fingers are crushed or bruised or broken in duels, no one sits back and thinks that her’s is a hand they would still hold.

     Annick misses her classes that next morning, swallowed up by the forgiving sheets like the clear, desaturated sky. To her professors and peers, it is just another in a long string of unremarkable absences.

**Author's Note:**

> The knife lovingly curves towards the fork, yearning, and the two seem necessary together. Yet they are so different, and the fork remains isolated on the other side of the plate.
> 
> I like to think about something nice for my characters to have or be apart of. Then do the opposite. :)


End file.
